Evelyn De Morgan (née Pickering), 1855-1919, was a successful and prolific artist. She showed a flair for art
from an early age. In 1873, Evelyn enrolled at the newly established Slade School of Art (becoming one of the
first three women to do so). In these formative years Evelyn also travelled extensively through France and Italy,
unaccompanied, to visit her uncle, the artist John Roddam Spencer-Stanhope. The influence of Botticelli and his
contemporaries is apparent in the style of many of Evelyn's paintings.

Evelyn was one of the first exhibitors at the Grosvenor Gallery, the avant-garde alternative to the Royal
Academy, where she exhibited alongside work by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, George Frederick Watts and Sir
Lawrence Alma Tadema. Watts described her as “the greatest woman painter of today and possibly of all time.”
She was a fine draughtswoman and her drawings are often mistaken for those of her contemporaries Lord
Leighton and Burne-Jones.

In 1887 Evelyn and William De Morgan married. While each continued to practise their own work, they jointly
became interested in and involved with many of the social issues of their day.

The De Morgan Centre, a museum and gallery in the London Borough of Wandsworth, houses a
large collection of the work of the Victorian ceramic artist William De Morgan and his wife, the painter Evelyn
De Morgan. The De Morgans were important figures in the Arts and Craft Movement and were also involved in
the social issues of the day such as women's suffrage and education.